Beneath the Snow Read online

  A yell stuck in her throat and a handful of seconds later they were bouncing and sliding across the surface until the aircraft lost speed, finally coming to rest beside a scooped area beneath a tall cliff cloaked with ancient pines.

  It looked as though it might be a beach in summertime but right now the whole area was frozen beneath a cape of snow. Stark cloud-topped mountains were hemmed by stretches of treeless tundra. There was a tiny log cabin with snow up to its windows tucked beneath the cliff but there was no other form of human habitation, or animal, come to that. No birds in the sky or fluttering between the trees. It was a bleak desert of cold and Abby couldn’t think what Victor was doing all the way out here.

  Mac didn’t cut the engines. ‘Better get a move on! Not long till dark!’

  Abby sprang into life at the realisation that the sooner they got rid of Victor and his equipment, the larger the window of safety she’d have on the next leg of the journey. Hauling a crowbar and pickaxe from the back of the plane, she edged her way on to the creaking ice and to shore, feeling the cold biting her neck, her wrists and face. Her feet were already numb, and on her next relay, she stamped, and felt the ice shudder slightly under her booted feet.

  ‘See ya,’ Mac told Victor with a clap on the back. ‘Watch out for the grizzlies.’

  Victor patted his rifle, and without even glancing at Abby, crunched away. Abby scowled. If she never saw Victor again, it would be too soon.

  ‘Next stop, Lake’s Edge,’ shouted Mac. ‘Let’s go!’

  Four

  They flew west for another ten minutes before Mac pointed out Lake’s Edge. The queasy feeling returned as Abby looked down at the remote outpost clinging to the side of a lake. Set in a deep valley between two mountains, if she hadn’t known where to look, she’d have never spotted it.

  Mac began to drop altitude and as they approached she recognised the same hardy spruce trees, the same main street, the same spiderweb of trails connecting the various dwellings.

  ‘You want a certificate?’ Mac asked her.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘We crossed the Arctic Circle a while back. Most people who come this far north like a memento.’

  ‘Thanks, Mac, but I’ve already got one.’ She couldn’t remember where she’d put it, though. No doubt she’d burned it with all her other Alaskan memorabilia. Abby leaned forward a little further as she continued peering outside. At the southern end of town she spotted a dirt runway cleared of snow.

  ‘Since when did Lake’s Edge get that?’ she asked, pointing down.

  ‘Couple of years back.’

  She looked across at him. ‘Don’t you have a plane with wheels?’

  ‘Sure, but it wouldn’t have got Victor to his cabin.’

  ‘The ice on this lake isn’t soft?’

  ‘Nah. We’re higher up here and don’t you worry, I got the go-ahead before we flew. Couldn’t do that for Victor with no one being there to check, but he was that desperate . . .’ He trailed off as the lake began to approach. Abby held her breath as he set the aircraft down, gently as a feather, but she didn’t unclench her fingers until he’d cruised to a firm stop beside a pontoon.

  Abby reckoned she was coping pretty well with being hauled unceremoniously from her cosy life in Oxford and forced to endure a terrifying bush flight, but when she saw the vast expanses of snow and ice reaching as far as the eye could see, the snow pluming off the tops of the mountains, jagged rubbles of rocks forming landslides on their flanks, she felt as though her mind was going to implode.

  If the trooper was right, Lisa has gone missing up there somewhere. People are looking for her. They’ve trackers and airplanes and dogs, and the trooper believes she’s dead. Whether I like it or not, this is for real.

  Abby clambered out of the aircraft. Hands tucked beneath her armpits, breath steaming in the freezing air, she looked around. Buildings, sheds and trees were all slumped under a coating of fresh snow. There were no cars or snow machines or people. The place looked deserted.

  Engine still running, Mac jumped out with her bag and dropped it on the pontoon. Abby was surprised at the dismay she felt when he held out his hand for a shake. ‘You’re not staying?’

  ‘Got to get to Glacier for a job first thing tomorrow.’

  Abby looked at the light bleeding out of the sky. ‘I didn’t think pilots out here flew in the dark.’

  He grinned, his scrubbing-brush moustache lifting to reveal a set of startlingly white teeth. ‘It’s only a short hop,’ he told her. ‘It’ll still be light when I get there.’

  ‘If I need to get back, shall I call you?’

  ‘I’m sure someone’ll give you a lift. Fairbanks isn’t that far – you can make it in a day.’

  ‘Aren’t all the roads closed?’

  ‘Only because of this last storm. The haul road’ll be clear pretty soon.’

  He was about to go, when she stopped him.

  ‘I don’t suppose you know where the police station is?’

  ‘There isn’t one. Nearest is Coldfoot.’ Mac jerked his chin towards the village. ‘You needn’t worry, Demarco’s on the way.’ She was about to turn to look for the trooper when he added, ‘Hope you find your sister.’

  ‘Me too,’ she murmured.

  Mac clapped her on the back before heading for his plane, calling, ‘Good luck!’ over his shoulder.

  Engine bellowing, he slipped to the end of the lake and turned, accelerating until the air was under his wings and he lifted off. Gradually the engine’s roar was coated with a dense, almost jelly-like silence that made her ears ring.

  ‘Miss McCall?’

  The voice was threaded with confusion and Abby felt the familiar surge of irritation that the trooper had assumed she and Lisa would look alike. As a kid she was convinced she’d been swapped in the hospital for another baby, she was so different from her family. With their compact bodies, curly dark hair and wild gestures that would knock vases and magazines off tabletops, Abby always felt washed-out and emotionally pale in comparison.

  Her mother had called her ‘my little changeling’ and Abby never forgot the feeling of bewilderment when she’d looked it up in the dictionary – a child believed to have been exchanged by fairies for the parents’ true child. It wasn’t until she was thirteen and Julia was having a clear-out one wet weekend that she’d fallen on a yellowing photograph of her great-grandmother. And there she was, right down to the slightly tilted, intense blue eyes and tiny birthmark at the corner of her mouth. If she hadn’t known it was Marijka Schikora, Norwegian bride to Dewitt McCall, she’d have thought it was a picture of herself.

  ‘Yes,’ she said now, ‘I’m Abby McCall.’

  Abby looked down at the uniformed trooper. Dark blue trousers with gold stripes down the sides, matching blue thickly padded parka with lots of pockets. Pistol on one hip, walkie-talkie on the other. Curly brown hair peeking from beneath a hat made of long beaver fur. Intelligent brown eyes. Warm beige lipstick. She was staring at her hair and Abby felt like saying no, it wasn’t dyed, and that yes, she liked it short-cropped and spiky like a bleached-white hedgehog; she rarely had to drag a comb through it and never had to use a hairdryer.

  ‘Ma’am,’ she said, finally giving up her hair inspection, ‘I’m Trooper Demarco.’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hope the trip was okay.’ The trooper kept her intelligent eyes on Abby’s. ‘It’s a long way to come.’

  Abby knew full well this was the coded version of You could have saved yourself the trouble if you’d listened to me and stayed at home, and refused to drop her gaze.

  Demarco smiled, as though she’d heard Abby’s thoughts. ‘I’ve a car,’ she said, all amiability. ‘I’m from Fairbanks, flew up in the heli when the ranger called me, but folk are generous around here and I’ve been loaned a vehicle.’

  They crunched their way along the pontoon for the car Demarco had pointed out. ‘I’ll take you to the school and fill you in. As a temporary measure we’re using
one of the teachers’ rooms. We don’t have a trooper post here, you see. Just a VPSO. A village public safety officer.’

  With the heater on full-blast, the trooper bounced her loaned Ford Explorer from pothole to pothole, crunching on muddy ice and fresh snow, making Abby feel as though she was riding in a cement mixer. A snowplough had gone through recently, piling banks of snow five feet high on either side, but there were no other vehicles.

  ‘I understand you’ve been here before,’ Demarco said.

  Abby nodded but didn’t say anything. She didn’t want the past dragged up. Turning her attention outside, she wondered where everyone was. It was like a ghost town. Log cabins with pitched roofs and wooden decks were covered in snow, their walls decorated with caribou antlers, saws and gold pans, but there was nobody about. Not even a dog.

  They passed a row of souvenir shops, snow-crusted signs for B&Bs, pizza pies and salmon steaks, and the Moose bar with its neon-pink sign flashing, Hot coffee, all-day breakfast, Budweiser, B&B. It was all terribly familiar but also strangely alien, as though she was watching a movie. The only indication of any change she could see was that the small visitor centre offering hiking, canoeing and fishing had expanded to take over the shop next door. Every storefront was closed up and sealed with wooden shutters; the tourist season didn’t kick off in full force until the end of May.

  Finally the trooper made a right, then slowed to a stop outside an industrial-looking single-storey building that looked more like a prison camp than a school. Abby unbuckled and stepped into the icy air, following the trooper up a set of concrete steps and through some double doors. The corridor smelled of disinfectant. Walls were covered in crayon drawings of bears, whales and flowers, and she could hear children chattering, their voices bright and happy, infusing Abby with a sudden sense of normality. But where were the parents? Why did the town appear to have been abandoned?

  At the end of the corridor Demarco pushed open a door and ushered Abby into a stuffy, overheated square box with whitewashed concrete walls. She could see four plastic chairs, an aluminium desk piled with paper, and a filing cabinet that looked as though it had been dropped from a roof. Beneath the windows was a small side table overflowing with paper cups and dirty mugs, packs of sugar and teabags. Aside from the teaching schedule pinned to the back of the door, Abby couldn’t see any evidence that it was a teacher’s office. They’d obviously moved out lock, stock and barrel.

  Demarco went to the coffee machine and poured them both cups. She offered Abby a chair, which she declined. She’d been travelling non-stop for twenty-four hours and if she sat down in the heat of this room, she knew she’d fall asleep.

  The trooper settled behind the desk and reached for a green folder. Ran a finger down the front page as though gathering the facts, then looked up at Abby with a sombre expression. Abby put her coffee on the windowsill and leaned a hand against the wall, concentrating on the warmed concrete against her skin, a long dried worm where the paint had run. ‘You’ve found her?’ Her voice was hoarse.

  Demarco shook her head. ‘Not yet. Everyone’s out there at the moment. Looking.’

  Abby swung to the window and glanced down the empty street. ‘Everyone?’

  ‘Pretty much. Folk from Wiseman and Coldfoot are chipping in too. We’ve dogs on the ground, and Ron and Lou . . . I mean Mr and Mrs Walmsley, are scouting in their airplane.’ Demarco glanced at the phone sitting on the desk, then away. ‘They’ll be back after dark.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  The trooper reached down to the floor and pulled up a crumpled map, spread it across her desk. Abby was immediately reminded of her ex-boyfriend, Robert. Newly divorced and charming, Robert had been a cartographer who’d taken her to the Lake District and taught her how to orienteer. Unfortunately, when he’d asked her to move in with him, she’d just about had a heart attack.

  Commitment isn’t a dirty word, Abby, he’d sighed. Not all men are bastards. Some of us are quite nice if you’d give us a chance.

  When he’d given her the ultimatum – move in or we’re finished – she’d taken the latter option. She hadn’t trusted him not to get back together with his ex-wife, to whom he spoke just about every other day. She found it hard to trust men after Cal. She hadn’t been out with anyone since.

  ‘We’re here.’ Demarco showed her where Lake’s Edge was, and then swept her finger south-west. ‘And we’re searching here.’ She pointed to an area marked with big black letters: WILDERNESS.

  Abby studied the swathes of areas shaded in green, white and brown, denoting glaciers, glacial moraines, crevasses and springs, woodland, waterfalls, and mile upon mile of cramped contour lines rising to various mountaintops. Only a handful of the rivers were named, and aside from the really big peaks, the mountains were also nameless. They just had a small dot with the height etched beside it. 4,492; 5,318.

  ‘Your sister was supposed to meet Joe Chenega at the weekend. Joe’s a forest ranger. He’s also a friend of your sister’s. They go fishing from time to time. He taught her about the wilderness, survival skills, that sort of stuff. She was supposed to collect a dog sled he was fixing up for her. When she didn’t turn up, he went and checked her place. From the equipment missing in her shed, he was of the opinion she’d gone skijoring.’

  ‘Skijoring?’ Abby repeated. Julia had mentioned something about skis, but she hadn’t taken it in.

  ‘Skiing behind a couple of dogs, with supplies either on her back or tied to a small sled. She’s known for taking off like that from time to time, but it’s the first time she’s been in trouble.’

  Abby’s jaw tightened. No, it’s not. She’s been a magnet for trouble since the day she was born.

  ‘You know my sister?’ she asked.

  ‘Never met,’ the trooper admitted. ‘But she’s well known around here . . .’ She reached into one of her zippered pockets and withdrew a tissue, briefly blew her nose. ‘I told you about the dog. He’s got frostbite, I think I told you, and he’s still pretty weak after his ordeal on the mountain . . .’

  The trooper was still talking but Abby’s mind had frozen on the vision of Lisa crawling through the snow, her elfin face blackening with frostbite, blood staining her mouth.

  ‘Ma’am?’

  She swallowed drily, forcing herself to push the picture away. Lisa was a survivor. Just because her dog had broken free didn’t mean Lisa was dead. She might be walking back down the mountain right as rain, for all they knew.

  ‘Joe knows the score when someone goes missing. He did a re-con when the storm cleared.’ The trooper pushed her finger at a small black square on the map. Abby checked the legend. Structure, ruins. ‘He ascertained someone stayed here recently . . . It’s a wilderness cabin. Your sister likes M&Ms, right? Smokes Marlboro?’

  Yes and yes, Abby replied silently, but a stubborn cynicism made her say, ‘My sister can’t be the only person in the world who smokes that particular brand of cigarette and eats chocolate-coated peanuts.’

  The trooper reached into the desk drawer and pulled out a small, clear plastic bag and passed it over. ‘We found this too.’

  For a second, Abby thought she was seeing things. It was her necklace, the one she’d bought with Granny Rose’s money for her sixteenth birthday. A slender silver chain with a turquoise drop. Lisa used to drive her mad, borrowing it without asking, and it appeared she’d done the same again. She hadn’t worn it for years and had had no idea it was missing. When in the world had Lisa pinched it? When they were kids? Or had it been later?

  ‘It’s Lisa’s, right?’ The trooper was watching her closely.

  ‘Actually, it’s mine.’ Abby gave a tight smile. ‘But I guess it means the same thing, as far as you’re concerned.’

  The trooper gave a nod and popped the necklace back inside the drawer. Abby was going to ask if she could have it, but realised Demarco wouldn’t know for sure that it was hers, and would have to wait for Lisa’s corroboration before handing it over.

&nbs
p; ‘This is where she’d be headed next, but it looks like she never made it.’ Demarco had returned to the map. ‘It’s been untouched all winter. Still is.’

  Abby traced the route. It was fifty miles from one place to the next across valleys and lakes, through forests and up cliffs. ‘She couldn’t do this in one day, surely.’

  ‘She’d camp out.’

  Abby must have looked incredulous, because the trooper added, ‘There’s an old trail linking the cabins. See, it makes a nice loop back to Lake’s Edge. It’s an easy three or four days. I gather she’d always aim out there if she’d been away, especially after a trip to Fairbanks. Joe says she liked to clear her head.’

  Nothing had changed, obviously. Abby could remember Lisa coming home from school, dumping her bags in the kitchen and disappearing into the garden – usually inside the tree house if it wasn’t too cold – for at least half an hour before she’d talk to anyone. Abby called Lisa weird, her father called her baffling, her mother, unique.

  ‘Joe says Lisa got back from town late on Friday, so it makes sense she left Saturday morning. She obviously forgot she was supposed to be meeting up with Joe later the same day.’

  Walking to the window Abby looked down the street. She wondered if it looked so colourless because night was falling, and whether the place would brighten up in the morning when all the people searching for Lisa returned. She flinched when the phone rang.

  Demarco picked it up. Listened briefly. ‘Yup. Loud and clear . . . You’ve found what? Jesus . . .’ She tucked the phone between her ear and shoulder and pulled the map across. ‘But that’s miles away.’

  Long silence.

  ‘Yup. Yup, okay. Will do.’

  Demarco dropped the receiver back into the cradle and bent over the map, studying it with a frown.

  ‘What is it?’ Abby asked. ‘Is it Lisa?’

  The trooper raised her head and looked at Abby straight. ‘They’ve found something . . . But it’s nowhere near where your sister went missing. I’m sorry.’